#9: Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders
by Rob Neyer
This is the second of the three "Big Books" released by Neyer so far. Rob Neyer's column on ESPN.com has long been a favorite of those interested in performance analysis, not just for his sharp understanding of the subject but because of his great wit and gift for storytelling. He combines all three in this book.
Most fans will be familiar with most or all of these stories, and thus we're interested to hear Neyer's take on what was (or was not) a real blunder. Neyer defines a "blunder" as not just a mistake, but a mistake of choice (not just an on-field error or mental mess-up) where the poor consequences should have been evident from the beginning. For example: nobody really expected Curt Schilling to be a Hall-of-Famer, so we can't really pin the "blunder" label on the teams that traded him. But trading a 30-year-old Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas? That's a blunder.
Most of these stories are stories of front office executives or managers with a big, glowing "What Were They Thinking" sign hanging over their heads. Since blunders require forethought and decision-making, they're rarely made by players on the field. Unless, of course, you're caught stealing to end the World Series.
#8: Bang the Drum Slowly
by Mark Harris
This is the only fiction book I have listed here. There's not a whole lot of baseball fiction out there, but there are some pretty notably books, namely: The Natural by Bernard Malamud, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella and The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Douglas Wallop. I confess that I've read neither Malamud's nor Kinsella's book (I liked Wallop's book, which was the basis for Damn Yankees, but it didn't make the cut). I have very little inclination to read sentamentalist baseball literature. I don't intend to make "sentamentalist" sound like an insult; that genre just isn't my cup of tea. That's also why you won't find The Boys of Summer mentioned here, despite its presence on nearly every other comparable list.
Keeping that in mind, you should be doubly surprised to see Mark Harris' book about a catcher dying of cancer on my list. It's hard to describe why this appealed to me so much. I think it's mainly because of the narrator, Henry Wiggin. Wiggin, nicknamed "Author" by his teammates, is the ace pitcher for the New York Mammoths. He's a very unique character in baseball fiction; he has an incredibly dry sense of humor as well as a very strong sense of detachment. This makes him a great observer of other people, in particular ballplayers, coaches and managers. And Harris gives Wiggin plenty to see and comment on (TEGWAR!).
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